PALO ALTO, Calif., May 15, 2012 – VMware, Inc. (NYSE: VMW), the global leader in virtualization and cloud infrastructure, today announced VMware vFabric™ Suite 5.1. With new capabilities that automate the deployment and management of complex applications on VMware cloud infrastructure and the introduction of an in-memory distributed SQL database, VMware vFabric Suite 5.1 will provide the core application services required to build, run and manage Java Spring applications whether on-premise or in the cloud.

“The cloud era is driving a transformation in applications. Today, most are built with open source development frameworks, deployed on lightweight application containers, run on virtual infrastructure and are data intensive,” said Jerry Chen, vice president, Cloud and Application Services, VMware. “This is driving a real transition in the type of technologies our customers are using to build, run and manage these new applications. Since introducing the vFabric Suite a year ago we have seen remarkable adoption amongst our customers, helping our Cloud Application Platform business to nearly double in year over year growth in 2011.”

The
VMware vFabric Suite seeks to address the complexity and cost of traditional Java platforms, providing a simple, lightweight development and runtime optimized for VMware cloud infrastructure. By combining the market-leading Spring development framework, the latest generation of vFabric application services and a per-VM licensing model, vFabric Suite 5.1 will provide the core application platform for building, deploying and running modern applications.

“Delivering excellent customer service is a hallmark of Southwest, so it's important to us that our customers have a seamless shopping, booking, and travel experience. We have a number of strategic initiatives underway at Southwest Airlines, and a core component in supporting these critical operations is ensuring an agile, flexible delivery of technology to all parts of the company,” said Bob Young, Chief Technology Officer, Southwest Airlines. “By partnering with VMware, for example, we were able to streamline the way we deliver and deploy applications across platforms, without compromising our service-centered approach.”

Optimized for Spring, Optimized for VMware vSphere®

The VMware vFabric Suite provides a complete set of runtime services to build, run and manage modern applications in distributed, cloud environments. The new capabilities in vFabric Suite 5.1 will allow customers to:

Maximize data scalability – Many of today’s mobile and web-oriented applications must support highly variable access patterns, putting pressure on any database-only approach to data management. To support this evolution, in-memory databases have emerged as a standard component of the core technology stack developers use today.
VMware vFabric SQLFire is an in-memory distributed SQL database built on the strength of
vFabric GemFire®, which is used by many of the most demanding applications in the world. vFabric SQLFire delivers dynamic scalability and high performance for modern, data-intensive applications all accessible through a familiar SQL interface.
By pooling memory, CPU and network resources across a cluster of machines, vFabric SQLFire eliminates the main performance bottleneck in traditional databases – disk access. vFabric SQLFire can manage data across geographies, accelerating application performance, minimizing latency and increasing reliability. vFabric SQLFire Professional will be included in the vFabric Suite 5.1.

Provide enterprise support for popular open source technologies – The VMware vFabric Suite 5.1 will include support for the open source runtime components most frequently used in production deployments of Spring applications, including Apache Tomcat, Apache HTTP Server and RabbitMQ® messaging. This greatly simplifies the adoption path of vFabric technologies for those organizations using these open source components today."From the increasing number of programming languages used to the heterogeneous nature of today's hybrid infrastructures, application development is changing quickly," said Stephen O'Grady, principal analyst with RedMonk. "Faced with such diversity, enterprises are increasingly turning to lightweight application containers to ease the pains of deployment."

vFabric Suite 5.1 will also be uniquely packaged and licensed to allow enterprises to purchase application infrastructure software based on virtual machines, rather than physical hardware, and to pay only for the average number of licenses in use. This model eliminates the decades-old need for organizations to purchase excess software in anticipation of peak loads, incurring significant costs and allowing software licenses to sit dormant outside of peak periods.

Pricing and Availability

VMware vFabric Suite 5.1 is expected to be available in Q2 2012. It will be licensed per VM with prices starting at $1,500 per VM.

VMware vFabric SQLFire is currently available, and is licensed per VM with prices starting at $2,500 per VM, when purchased as part of VMware vFabric Suite Advanced.

About VMware

VMware is the leader in virtualization and cloud infrastructure solutions that enable businesses to thrive in the Cloud Era. Customers rely on VMware to help them transform the way they build, deliver and consume Information Technology resources in a manner that is evolutionary and based on their specific needs. With 2011 revenues of $3.77 billion, VMware has more than 350,000 customers and 50,000 partners. The company is headquartered in Silicon Valley with offices throughout the world and can be found online at
www.vmware.com.

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VMware, VMware vFabric, VMware vSphere, vFabric Application Director, GemFire and RabbitMQ are registered trademarks and/or trademarks of VMware, Inc. in the United States and/or other jurisdictions. All other marks and names mentioned herein may be trademarks of their respective companies. The use of the word "partner" or "partnership" does not imply a legal partnership relationship between VMware and any other company.